A spring day in the village of Little Japan, sometime during the Sengoku Jidai (‘Warring States’) period. In the shade of the cherry-blossom trees, a yellow-clad monk stands on the temple verandah and greets an old-timer ambling past. Nearby, a mother is dragging her bawling child to market, while a well-dressed lady waits near the monument in the centre of the square.

Behind them a geisha practises her moves with a pair of fans. Two workers hurry past, one laden with goods balanced on a pole, the other carrying a mattock to work in the fields. On the street corner, two samurai show each other the latest moves with their swords.

I’ve been quietly plodding along with my samurai project, and over the last week or so have painted these Perry civilians. Today I set them up on my desk, along with two houses from 4Ground, and the temple from Fukei/Plastcraft Games.

Now it is a matter of getting back to painting more of the samurai and ashigaru soldiers, to destroy the peace in this idyllic little Japanese village scene! A hint of this can be seen in the picture below, as a couple of my Kingsford samurai figures arrive on the scene.

When I made the castle for our Lion Rampant games back at the start of the year I wanted to have some ducks swimming along in the moat. I didn't get around to doing that. However, then I won another blog giveaway, this time from Anne at O'Leary Miniatures.Anne very kindly gave me $20 to spend at Warbases . A quick look on their website and I was o […]

a.k.a. Captain AbramoviciI present, for your delectation, just a single miniature this morning, but what a fearsome lump of lead! If truth be told, I've been putting off working on Mr. Sickle for a while now, as not only is it a considerably larger model from the 'Knight Model' stable, but acres of rippling muscle are not my favourite thing t […]

No. 4 in the Charles Hayden series and as good as the previous reads... not in quite the same literary vein as O'Brien, more the entertaining side in the same arena as Forester (but definitely better than Pope's Ramage )...Hayden is an interesting character - a frigate captain in the Royal Navy of the Napoleonic Wars who is half French - not someth […]

Some more additions to the Penguin Crew in the shape of 'Ice Penguin' with his sawn off shotgun and 'Savage Penguin' with his mini uzi. I have also plucked up the courage to revisit 'Penguin Emperor' and had a go at fixing his broken electric baton using some beading wire, it is now fairly flexible so shouldn't snap off a […]

With a day free, as the rest of the family were busy, I got to try out Kings Of War from Mantic Games, with mate Matt.Matt is a WFB player, from the local KWC club who has been adversely affected by the GW switch to Age of Sigmar. Obviously feeling shafted by GW's complete change to their fantasy gaming system, Matt and several other local WFB players a […]

Thanks to those who commented on the previous post on the topic of brigades (Jim, Bill, Paul, Keith, Graham). Some interesting thoughts and viewpoints.Continuing on...Having looked at a small Pils-Holstein Brigade last time, it's time to turn attention to a French Brigade... This is The Picardie Brigade (so named after it's senior regiment, as all […]

Whilst during the mid-18th century, the organisation of armies into Brigades appears to have been a more administrative/ campaign construct rather than a battlefield formation, I am finding it useful to build up the orbats for the Pils-Holstein collection with a brigade structure.And it may well be that I utilise this as an optional element within the tablet […]

When starting this mad dash into the comic book world of Batman, I was greatly inspired by a series of posts by the 'Dark Templar' and 'Bullcher Feb'. Both gentlemen were busily building their crews ahead of an initial showdown when their attentions turned to terrain building and objective markers. If truth be told this is where the origi […]

Steve the Wargamer has never been what you would call "up to date" with his viewing habits.. to be honest I watch very little on the haunted fish tank theses days, it's mostly repeats, or formulaic nonsense, but every now and again he finds an hour to sit down and watch something.. Anyway, I bought this for my Dad for Fathers Day (along with t […]

Each Brigade in my 18th Century collection will have a token supply wagon... and I decided that, with the Brigades starting to take shape, it was high time to paint these pieces, otherwise it's the sort of job that would get left till the end, grow into a monster, and may never get done!So, first up, French wagons for the first two Brigades (Picardie an […]